Politics

In response to the mass street protests in Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff proposed a raft of reforms of the political system which appear to be bogged down by red tape and interminable party negotiations - precisely the kind of thing the demonstrators are complaining about.

The street marches in Brazil, initially non-party-political, have begun to take on the hues of leftwing political and social groupings, which are now trying to set the course of the movement that emerged from online social networks.

The São Paulo Forum, which groups leftist political parties and organisations of Latin America and the Caribbean, sees a victory by Venezuela’s acting President Nicolás Maduro in the Apr. 14 elections as key to the future of the left in the region, and to “containing the right”.

What is Hugo Chávez's legacy to Latin America? The best way to evaluate a head of state is to examine what is left behind after his or her death. In the case of Chávez, his image is obscured by a series of ideological and cultural prejudices that hide a clear perception of who he was.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s comments about foreigners taking Australian jobs in a speech made last week in Rooty Hill, the working-class heartland of Sydney’s western suburbs, has brought issues of immigration, asylum and race back into election campaigning.

Part of the legacy left by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who died Tuesday, was his determined struggle for the integration of Latin America independent of the standards and models of the industrialised North, and for the reinvigoration of left-wing radicalism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa secured yesterday his third term in office by a landslide, after vowing to radically deepen his project of citizens' revolution by making the changes achieved thus far "irreversible", fully achieving the goals of eradicating poverty, transforming the model of production and consolidating the "rule of the people”.

Early this month, Cubans went to the polls to elect delegates nominated by municipal and provincial assemblies to the island's parliament, the highest government body where citizens' votes carry decisive weight. The turnout, as usual, was over 90 percent, and all the municipal candidates, as usual, were voted in.

Last week’s dramatic and very public display of deep fissures among the leading politicians of Iran has left many here wondering if the conflict will escalate into an all-out war among various political factions in the run-up to the presidential election in June.

Governments of countries in the Americas are relying on the passage of time and a relatively peaceful political atmosphere to sort out the unprecedented institutional situation in Venezuela, whose ailing president Hugo Chávez is out of the country, while the executive team tasked with carrying out his former mandate continues in office.

While Hugo Chávez is being treated for serious illness in Havana, the premise of government "continuity" is winning out in his home country, along with plans to postpone his swearing-in ceremony for a new term as president of Venezuela, due to take place on Thursday Jan. 10.

With less than a week left in the 2012 election campaign and much of the Northeast recovering from Hurricane Sandy, President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, former governor Mitt Romney, are running neck and neck in the national popular vote, according to the most recent surveys.

When Philippines President Benigno Aquino III delivered his annual state of the union address in July, he appealed to the country’s lawmakers to break a deadlock on progressive birth control laws in this predominantly Catholic nation.

Three years ago, Sherly Hue lived the life of a typical career woman in Kuala Lumpur, working as a marketing executive promoting building materials. But one day, she received a phone call from her worried parents that would forever change her life.

Paraguyan rights groups are disappointed at being denied access to a delegation of the Organisation of American States (OAS) sent in this week to discover the facts behind the impeachment and removal of President Fernando Lugo on Jun. 22.

Paraguay’s isolation, following the impeachment and ouster of President Fernando Lugo 11 days ago, has grown thanks to slender recognition for the new government and souring diplomatic relations with the neighbours.

The identification of the remains of victims of forced disappearance of Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship – whose bodies were buried in secret graves or thrown into the sea - is moving forward, with periodic findings that have a strong impact on the families and on society as a whole.

With more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners weeks into an open-ended hunger strike in protest against worsening conditions in Israeli jails, including two that have gone without food for 72 days, human rights groups say many lives are in danger and are calling for urgent intervention.